Editorial: The suicide of a sociopath

Wednesday

Apr 19, 2017 at 11:41 AMApr 19, 2017 at 12:22 PM

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, who has spent his career around criminals, called Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots star-turned-murderer, the most charming and manipulative sociopath he had ever met. Corrections officers at Souza Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Mass., had no idea he was thinking of hanging himself, the sheriff said in an interview on WEEI radio Wednesday morning.

But Hernandez delivered a stunning coda to his extraordinary fall from grace around 3 a.m. Wednesday when he evidently strangled himself using a bedsheet. He did so at the perfect time to cast a pall over his former teammates’ visit to the White House, a hard-earned tribute to their historic comeback victory in this year’s Super Bowl.

Even with his death he marred the Patriots’ legend.

The apparent suicide followed another stunner — last week’s arguably preposterous jury acquittal for a drive-by shooting of two people in Boston, in 2012. That was undoubtedly a triumph for his legal team, but Hernandez returned to his prison cell and, at 27, faced life in jail without the possibility of parole for the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd, who was found in a pit in an industrial park near Hernandez’s North Attleboro home.

It seems possible that that bleak outlook, and the opportunity to be malicious one last time, drove him to kill himself.

One turns to Greek and Elizabethan tragedy for comparable revolutions on Fortune’s wheel.

When he was drafted by the Patriots in 2010, he declared that he was “happy because there are millions of people out there who would love to be in my shoes.”

Five years ago, he had a strong showing in the Super Bowl as one of the Patriots’ star tight ends. Although New England lost that storied game to the New York Giants, 21-17, Hernandez caught eight passes and scored a touchdown.

That year, he signed a $41 million contract with the Patriots, and donated $50,000 to the Patriots’ charity. Team owner Robert Kraft called that “one of the most touching moments since I’ve owned the team.”

He was 23, set for life, admired by millions of football fans.

But he chose to stay immersed in the world of his youth, marred by drugs, gangs, tattoos and a macho mentality that could not abide any shows of disrespect. He chose to ruin lives, including his own, with gratuitous violence that escalated to killing. On June 26, 2013, he was arrested and charged with first degree murder. He spent the rest of his young life, with the exception of trips to a courthouse, behind bars.

Many have wondered how this plays into the culture of football and celebrity worship. Did the Patriots overlook clear and compelling signs that he was bad news (one reason that, despite first-round talent, he remained in the draft until the fourth round), putting their insatiable desire to win above any other consideration? If so, the team’s reputation has certainly suffered for it. Or were the Patriots duped by what Sheriff Hodgson describes as his sociopathic charm? Did they really believe he had turned his life around?

Either way, the end was sordid and sad, and the path of destruction Hernandez left behind was long and bloody.

His fall serves as a cautionary tale about investing too much admiration and hope in pampered celebrities, including those on the football field.